Winning Challenges
by Karen Hikari
Summary: Well, the daughter of Athena thought, now she had to figure out how she'd handle someone like Nico di Angelo in a mortal-styled classroom. Gods, maybe winning this one challenge hadn't been her best decision after all.


**Okay, well, this plot goes along with another story previously published called "Testing the Ground" and this is more or less what would have happened if Persephone didn't have had interfired so in time. They can be read separetely, but there are a couple of similarities here.**

 **This is just some Annabeth and Nico bonding and the idea came after my class and I watched Helen Keler's movie (well, don't look at me, I highly recomend the movie and a part of me feels guilty for even doing this) and a friend of mine pointed out a couple of dialogues that were included in this story, because at the time I was writing "Testing the Ground".**

 **Okay, enough of my rambling, I hope you enjoy this!**

* * *

 ** _Wining Challenges_**

* * *

If there was one thing that Annabeth Chase hated, that was to not have things done her way. Of course, people in both Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter knew better than to go against her.

Unless you were Nico di Angelo, that boy simply liked challenges and getting in trouble. Which was exactly what he did on that September afternoon when Annabeth finally convinced him of giving her ten minutes of his time and talk with her.

"So, you know how now that the war ended the activities at the camp are going back to normality, right?" she started when Nico didn't refuse —though he didn't assent either— she continued. "And as you know one of those activities is a subject that includes mortal history, right?"

"So?" Nico inquired, raising an uninterested eyebrow.

"What I'm saying is that you need to sign-in for this class" Annabeth concluded, containing a sigh.

It was true that Nico di Angelo wasn't precisely a talkative person, but whoever had said that he wasn't _expressive_ surely was mistaken, Annabeth noted as she saw the son of Hades grimace in distaste.

"That's a total no, if you're asking" he muttered, turning on his heels as he proceeded to ignore the girl's calls for his name.

"This is about your education, Nico!" Annabeth tried one last time. "You can't do this and ignore me, I'm concerned about you!" she said, but the son of Hades decided that training _indeed_ sounded more interesting than the history of the Independence of the Thirteen Colonies if that was what Annabeth meant and so he left her talking to herself.

―*―*―

Of course, he should have known better than to challenge Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, survivor of Tartarus and savior of Olympus, because if that girl was anything other than clever, well, that was persevering. And he didn't mean that as a compliment, if you were asking.

The reason why he said so was because in the two weeks that followed their argument he realized just how _stubborn_ Annabeth could be.

It started simply, with things that he could avoid if he tried hard enough, but the more he escaped, the more he convinced Annabeth that she was doing the right thing and indeed needed to continue trying to show Nico 'how mistaken and wrong he was turning a blind eye on his education'.

The first days, she'd tried to speak with him, to persuade him, to convince him that he needed to know mortal history, but her voice held no charmspeak and so Nico remained faithful to his first and fully-honest answer.

When the daughter of Athena finally realized that such a technique wouldn't get her anywhere, she started to menace him, but Nico could see how she crossed her fingers behind her back and knew she wouldn't accomplish those threats in the least, which concluded in him turning a deaf ear to Annabeth's protests.

In the end, and almost running out of ideas, Annabeth decided to change her strategy: she would fake that she had been defeated and tell Nico he had won this one time out of mere stubbornness and leave him alone for a couple of days.

Unfortunately, she was charging right back on day three with a brand new technique: pretending she had yielded.

This new strategy marked that she had to go sit right in front of Cabin 13 with her boyfriend, the one and only Perseus Jackson and inform, almost yelling, 'That she was going to review with Percy because the insensitive of Nico di Angelo had refused to study with her', to what the son of Poseidon, unaware of her true intentions, could only nod.

Then she started asking; asking simple, easy, almost dumb questions that Percy, of course, answered wrongly.

' _In what year did the United States became Independent? Which is the biggest star in our Solar System? What is the name of our galaxy and what is it named after?_ ', things like that.

From inside of his cabin, all Nico could do was feel his entrails turning while Percy plainly answered 1927, Neptune and Highway to Heaven because you could see the stars from Earth.

And then it became worse.

It was three stupid questions ' _In what year did World War II begin? In what year did it end?_ , and _'Who was the Italian dictator that supported Hitler's ideas?_ '

Stupid, easy questions to which the almighty Perseus responded '1923', '1947' and 'Benjamin Franklin'.

That was it, Nico thought, finally letting his basic mortal knowledge take over him and force him to open the door of his cabin and almost scream his lungs out. _Enough was enough_.

"Annabeth, what in Tartarus are you doing?" he asked, shooting the girl a glance that would have terrified anyone. Except for the fact that she had her back turned to him and utterly ignored the son of Hades.

"Not now, Nico, don't you see I'm busy?" she retorted nonchalantly. "I'm teaching Percy all that you told me you didn't care about".

"World War II began in 1939, ended in 1945 and the dictator that followed Hitler's lead was Benito Mussolini, you idiot!" Nico screamed, getting between Annabeth and Percy while trying to shake some sense into the son of Poseidon. Behind him, he heard Annabeth try —and fail— to hold back laughter, which only caused his anger to increase. "Now, this is your fault, isn't it?" he inquired, turning towards her. "And this… this torture won't stop until I agree to sign into your stupid course, will it?" he continued, pointing at the girl with his index finger, gesturing back and forth between Percy and her.

"I must admit that if you had signed-up from the beginning this wouldn't be happening" Annabeth nodded, smiling.

"Then yes, yes, have it your way and teach your mortal history or whatever you want, but shut him up!" he said, almost yelling. "And don't ever ask him anything in my presence again!" he concluded, turning his hating aura towards his cabin and slamming the door so hard Annabeth almost feared the building's structure would have been damaged.

"So, will you finally tell me what this was all about?" Percy finally asked, taking in the sight of Annabeth.

"I win" she replied, smirking mischievously. "I always win" unable to retort anything that didn't make him sound even more idiotic than he already seemed, the son of Poseidon simply circled Annabeth's waist.

Well, the daughter of Athena thought, now she had to figure out how she'd handle someone like Nico di Angelo in a mortal-styled classroom.

Gods, maybe winning this one challenge hadn't been her best decision after all.

* * *

 **Thank you for everything, my lovely readers!**

 **Now, you may not know, but this month brought a celebration for me and I** **want to share something with you. This month it makes exactly three years (from February 2013) since I wrote my first story, a fanfic called "Campanas" (Bells, in English) for the show Death Note.**

 **At the moment I had no idea of how big this would be and neither did I know that this was my first step to a whole new chapter of my life.**

 **I decided that I had to do something special to commemorate this date and I thought that nothing would be better than becoming closer to you, the readers, who in the end are the ones who have supported me, who ask me to continue doing this (I wouldn't be able to stop even if you asked me to, so it's my honor that at least you like my work), and who are the ones who make this worth it.**

 **Wanting to make my communication with you readers better I decided to open a Facebook account dedicated to fanfiction (wunder the name of Karen Hikari too) in which you will be able to see what story I plan to update soon, my plans for the month and a lot more of things!**

 **As always, thank you, thank you to all those followers, to the ones who have read, commented, added to favorites. I do this thanks to and for you and, in all honesty, I owe myself to you, so this is just another way to extend my gratitude to you lovely people.**

 **I'm telling you from this moment, that this page will be madness, because as I have written stories both in English and Spanish, I have followers that speak both languages, so you'll see me translating each and every note I write. Let's hope this doesn't crash and burn too bad!**

 **And, as always, read you soon!**


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